Comments

Wow, I know its a mock up but the new admin is really unimpressive. If the mock up is accurate of the new admin section, then I am pretty disappointed. After seeing how clean the Movable Type 4 interface was, I was hoping WordPress would innovate.

Dang it I was hoping to be one of those people who could say “Ooo it’s sexy!” or something, but … as been stated, it’s really not that great. I’d prefer keeping the current default admin style then go to this … it’s like a huge step backwards.

Sorry, I know you guys are working hard and this is just a peek at the admin … but, ew. Come on. If you need help skinning, I’m sure there are TONS of great designers eager to help. Heck, I’d throw my skills out there if you wanted!

But – I still can’t wait for the new WP version. I’m sure it will be great.

I’m afraid I must agree with everyone else in that I don’t like it. The WP backend, although functional, was always clunky and cluttered but I don’t really see this as much of an improvement. Currently I’m using both the Advanced-Admin-Menus and SpotMilk plugins to prettify things.

Definitely not what most of us were hoping for but somehow I still like what I am seeing. There will be virtually no learning curve for users used to the old backend. The new design is neater and cleaner than the old. I love the password strength facility. Bye bye ‘presentation’, hello ‘design’ (makes more sense).

Shuttle was beautiful. This, even though a bit better then the old one (I kinda like the cleaner look), is crap compared to MT4. That being said, I thought Matt and the WP Gang would have done everyone a huge favour by incorporating the elements of Shuttle rather then what they did.

I currently use some admin tweaks in order to make the admin a bit better to use, rather then leaving things default.

I totally agree with what most guys said. It’s not what we expected it to be especially after seeing the Shuttle Project. If this is how the admin interface would look like in 2.4, I hope Tiger Admin, SpotMilk and other admin themes would still be working coz I sure won’t be using the default one.

Gotta agree with everyone else, the design just isn’t what I was expecting…

THE REASON?: WordPress’s creators have been constantly blowing us away over the past few years with all their cool new features and the software’s ultra-user-friendly design. Hmmmm…Perhaps we all set the bar too high in our heads with the amazing overall quality of everything else they roll out?

While I’ve grown fond of the current design, I actually think this is heading in a nice direction, visually. It has that kind of fresh, “Threadless” or “Vimeo” stylishness to it. Not bad!

Now, I realize this mockup is far from done (a lot of the content still looks like it simply hasn’t been attended to yet), but looking at Shuttle, I hope they will be incorporating some of its features. Up until now it isn’t really more than some new eye candy. Will the 2.4 admin be offering any actual usability enhancements?

I know the design isn’t finished, so no comment on overall look, but someone, please….

Light blue on white? White on orange? Ow, ow, OW. I don’t need a finished design to know how rough those combinations are on those of us with less-than-perfect vision. I’ll be in a bad way if my dashboard suddenly becomes a colorful blur, and I know I’m not alone.

We’ll definitely be looking for a lot of input, as it’s super-useful, but at a later stage when there’s a fully-formed thought for people to respond to. Right now it’s like commenting on a half-painted (and half-built) bikeshed.

After reading the comments, the only ones that make sense are Matts. The screenshots and video tour is only a description of what the admin panel looks like at its current stage of development. Since the admin panel redesign has only just begun, how can anyone give their honest opinion on something so incomplete?

I like the concept of the new dashboard/admin. Definitely like the “Design” better than “Presentation”
But, like Matt said, just an idea of what it’s going to look like. I hope, though, that something like how you can edit the colors easily in one of the default themes, that you’ll be able to do the same with the admin area. That’s something I’d like to see. Maybe if I could adjust my admin area easier, I’ll stop messing with the actual look of my blog

When comparing the new admin, 2.4, against the current admin, 2.3.2, my strong preference is for the current admin. Reason for this statement includes for example on the ‘Dashboard’ I do not like to click to get to the information that I want to see and if I do I prefer the number of clicks to be minimal. Your changes make the admin panel neater in appearance but adds more work for the user. The change increases the number of clicks I have to make to get to the information, not decrease it. Other than adding more clicks to get to the information I do not see any significant change. Plus I assume the colour scheme has not been set? Unless some real improvement can be made to the admin panel it is my hope that it is not changed.

I didn’t see any significant functional difference between this and the present admin panel. One thing that I’m sure in – I do not want to see a WP admin panel designed like this – it’s just ugly and I hope those were just random colours for testing purposes.

Probably the most innovative admin interface so far, with better use of space (personnal opinion), but still a little too much bugs (great job anyway for a 1-dev-team) and some period to get used to it.

OK, this is nuts… if we wait for the “final” product before we judge when it’s clear to those of us looking at the “current stage of development” that it’s headed in the wrong direction visually, then we’re going to end up with a train wreck interface.

The whole point of feedback during a development process is to make sure that the development process is moving in a direction that people are appreciative of and comfortable with, so while some of you may think that it’s inappropriate to judge before it’s done are just insane.

Think of it this way… when a car company takes concept models to car shows, do you think it’s because they don’t want feedback? Of course they want feedback… it helps them decide on the design for other models. If people don’t like Concept #995236, they’re not gonna base their entire lineup on that concept.

So, sorry, Matt… I know the negative vibe people are giving on the current stage is disappointing, but that should be a clear indication that Shuttle or similarly innovative concept needs to be moved forward, not just a new color scheme and renaming a few menu items. We know it’s not done, but people are also expecting better, and trust me– we anxiously await the next development stage.

“The screenshots and video tour is only a description of what the admin panel looks like at its current stage of development. Since the admin panel redesign has only just begun, how can anyone give their honest opinion on something so incomplete?”

Well my response to that is that it was posted to see how we would respond. SO WE’RE RESPONDING!!! Simple as that.

I personally don’t like it.. and if this is the way it will look… hopefully we’ll have the option to use the current one!

Ok, went through it again after, I figured I could give it a less bias opinion since I already know what to expect.

I realize this isn’t a designed and prettied up version of the final admin. So I do apologize for not liking it … but you have to admit if you where anxiously awaiting the new version of something and you saw an earily dev of the back end and it wasn’t much of a change and had some strange color selections – you’d suffer a bit of shell shock. Kind of like when Vista came out … well, no … sorry, I won’t compare this to that mess! You could have a hand drawn monkey for admin and it would be better.

If you didn’t want negative comments than, no offense, you shouldn’t have shown something that was 90% unfinished. You’re not going to get the happy-happy feedback you want. You’ll get critique on what people are seeing.

But, for the record – thank you all the developers for your hardwork and dedication. I’m looking forward to seeing the project as it unfolds!

Tadd, Matt did not show everyone the back end. Since WordPress is Open Source, someone downloaded the half baked code on their own and developed a mockup of the back end (or produced a video) to be displayed to the rest of the world. Since it was the first public display of the new admin interface as it is starting to look, it was posted here. This post was an attempt to give readers an idea of where things were headed with the admin. As Matt says above, WordPress is definitely looking for input and negative criticism might be warranted.

However I would like to remind you that this is completely unfinished and might not look the way it was or is intended to look by the developers and your criticism might not work for the finished product. Thoughts and ideas are good and are always welcome.

@Mark – Ah, see for whatever reason I assumed it was an official peak at what the admin is looking like from the main team of developers. My mistake. I apologize for being snidely and jumping-the-gun.
And as you said, this is open source. SO, even if we’re not thrilled with the final results (which, I assume we will be) there are always ways to make it your own, as shown in a previous post here with admin themes.

Again, sorry for jumping the gun. Sorry Matt and all the dev team. I don’t want to discourage you. I love WordPress and I’m sure the new version will be as good and better than the current.

Okay…it looks like a very early mockup based entirely on the current Admin interface. I like the “Design” and “Settings” replacements for “Presentation” and “Options” well enough as long as that particular change will be compatible with “Advanced Admin Menus” (drop down menus which is an absolute must for most folks) and “Spotmilk” and the like. Otherwise…well…it looks like a very early mockup…fairly bad (no offense intended… I know what it’s like).

However, I believe that with the release date just three weeks away I strongly suggest that the new Admin interface go the way tagging did at first. Wait until the 2.5 release before introducing into WP so you have sufficient time to develop something really decent that perhaps incorporates some features of those long standing Admin plugins such as “Advanced Admin Menus” and the old “Shuttle” project etc. Also to make sure the interface can fall back gracefully if any Ajax, etc is used for users who don’t have a Java enabled in their browser.

Instead, continue the work in making the performance of the Admin and WP overall as efficient and fast as possible. I know the developers have already put a lot of time and effort into this with obvious results. Once the Admin is “fine tuned” then it will be time to work on the interface.

Don’t really mind what teh colours are – I don’t spend that much time in admin once it is set up, but the new interface from the front doesn’t look that much different from the old, so unless there are big changes in teh coding (I’m not a developer) it appears at first sight to be change for change sake. However if there are improvements in speed, maybe new features, then a change of colour scheme to differentiate it is fine – and the new one is no better or worse thatn the other. (Thought – how about customisable themes for the admin pages?)

I quite do not care how it looks, if it would
1) have easy possibility to
a) replace completely the admin css via plugin hook
b) append aditional CSS after the existing CSS to change just a few rules using plugin hook
2) when the CSS code would be without hacks, minimalistics, with no !imporant, with right defined ID / Classes so that it would be no big problem to change something (using 1b procedure)
3) the html code would be maximaly standardized (in 2.3. version it is almost perfect, the only problem is upload.php part, which is pain in the ass – it has as the only part 3rd level of menu, it has different header levels etc.

As a very important improvement (even it is not so big problem to solve it using some plugin) would be to make 2. level menu always accesible using :hover effect on first level menu (easy to do using CSS only, of course IE6 users will not see it and will have it stupid as it is now, but who cares and if someone do, it can be easily solved via one row in header and one .htc file)

If a developer wants any help, he may contact me any time. BTW i am profesional web developer for more then 10 years, with > 300 websites experience

SHUTTLE. SHUTTLE. SHUTTLE. By the way, did I mention SHUTTLE? The mock up is certainly not stylized, and I believe that most of us understand that. The problem that I hear echoed is that it does not seem that the development is heading in that direction. Better use of space and greater functionality as well as flexibility seems to be the consensus of what users are looking for. Other than the color scheme and layout, I don’t really see much of a difference in the mock up and the 2.3 version.

C’mon, Matt… telling your core, power users — who have tried and reviewed other interfaces — that it’s “too early to comment” AFTER your early revisions leak out doesn’t seem very respectful. It is reactive, rather than proactive, at best. Many of these folks make recommendations to prospective clients to use, or not use WordPress as their CMS.

Why not poll what users have liked and disliked in the different admin. revision plugins, and the Shuttle interface? I looked at the WP support forum and searched for a 2.4 admin. thread. None came up. I could start one (reactive), or the Automattic team could do so (proactive).

To be honest I don’t like it, I know it’s a mockup but still, mostly cause the colors remind me of office 2007 and its new ribbon interface, however I remember the first time I logged in into WordPress and how I thought the admin interface looked ulgy, but I got used to it and now I like it.

I know this is a rough preview at best, but I was really hoping to see some significant improvement to the overall user experience. This is kind of anticlimatic for me. There is so much opportunity to develop a really great UX here, and really build upon the many lessons that have been learned (hopefully) from the past few releases. WordPress is an amazing platform – please do it and the community some justice.

I can verify that. I just loaded up todays (25th) build and it’s “Links” just like Jeff shows. The old “Bogroll” link category is still there but that can be deleted in favor of your own categories as always.

[…] Weblog Tools Collection » Blog Archive » WordPress 2.4 Admin Preview WordPress 2.4 Admin Demo Interface Tubetorial Video der WordPress 2.4 Admin Oberflaeche WordPress 2.4 Admin Preview: Jordan built up a mockup of the new WordPress 2.4 admin backend. Some of the features work, some of them do not. However you can still get a good idea of what it will look like in 2.4 and where the admin redesign is headed. Via Email. Also, TubeTorial has a video walkthrough of the new admin interface. […]

About the Author

Mark Ghosh

An avid fan of business, education, technology and finance. I lead a lean, highly focussed and capable team of Java Back End developers and Front End developers through a maze of complex software wizardry to fulfill the web maintenance needs of a large chemical manufacturer. As per Myers-Briggs Personality Types, I am an ESTJ. I pride in a project completed on time and according to plan. My hobbies include all kinds of technology, anything that I can taste and anything that goes fast or flies in the air. I like to read business books and comics in my spare time.